Fire and Rain
by viper676
Summary: Audrey Rodriguez, Kit and Nita's oldest daughter, discovers her parents' secret, and takes it upon herself to take the Oath for herself. What happens on her Ordeal just might mean the death of the universe if she screws up... Read and Review, please!
1. Fire and Rain

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A/N: I don't own YW or James Taylor. Saying I did would be giving me way too much credit.

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Chapter One

Fire and Rain

Audrey Rodriguez was bored out of her mind. Very, very usual for the small, auburn-haired thirteen-year-old. She lay on the thankfully green front lawn of her house and breathed in the smell of summer, her brown eyes closing as she relaxed in the warmth of the sun.

She could hear her mother and father arguing about something again in their upstairs bedroom, and she wondered what on earth kept provoking these arguments. They had been a lot tenser than usual as of late, and when Audrey asked about it, her usually fun-loving father snapped at her and told her to shut up.

In despair, she had resorted to isolating herself from her bickering parents and hoping that it wouldn't get so bad that they'd refuse to talk.

And so she lay on the front lawn, daydreaming of the beach, of what to do during the course of the summer.

It was the day after school had, at long last, let out on the fifteenth, and Audrey could not have been happier. Summer, summer, summer, without a care in the world. Well… besides those summer assignments she'd received from English and Science… but, hell, those could wait.

She sighed and nestled her head into the comfort of the grass. Her parakeet, Reefer, cheeped indignantly at the prominent absence of birdseed from his bowl, and Audrey's daydreams of surfboards, sand, and sun were turned to dust. With a moan of reluctance, she sat up and, brushing herself off, trudged into the house, kicking off her Adidases in the process. She grinned at her younger brother, who was contentedly watching The Weekenders on the living room couch, and plodded up the stairs to the second floor.

Audrey had her hand on the door of her room when she heard her mother exclaim exasperatedly, "Kit, look. It's not _like_ the old days. He's already been spreading his power around the US… and no one's done anything about it! Look, even in California, we have wildfires with more and more occurrence, those are all _his_ fault!"

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Whose fault? Audrey wondered pensively. _And why does this matter?_

Her dad's voice, soft and controlled, reached her ears next. "Look, Neets, is it _my _fault we've been commissioned to help watch Orange County? Is it _my_ fault that Dari has her hands full with the fires? Is it _my _fault…"

Nita's voice interrupted him. "Hold on, Kit…" she said shakily.

There was silence for a short while, and Audrey had barely decided that it just might be a good idea to pull out, when the bedroom door opened, and her mom's ashen face looked back at her.

"How long have you been here?" she asked quietly. Audrey couldn't quite decipher the emotions that were in her mom's voice. She caught worry, a hint of panic, and a small amount of anger, but everything else was jumbled up in her shaking voice.

So she merely shrugged nonchalantly. "Um… about twenty seconds."

Her mom glanced over her shoulder at her dad, who buried his face in his hands and nodded.

Audrey felt herself being pulled into her parents' room and the door being shut behind her.

Her mom placed both hands on her shoulder in an obvious attempt to calm her, but it didn't help much, as Nita was involuntarily trembling hard.

She glanced wryly at Kit, however. "It looks like we've got to tell her everything…"

Her dad nodded, and Nita began. "Look… see, this all began one day when I was twelve…"

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Audrey lay on her back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, contemplating what she'd been told. Everything about Seniors, other worlds, worldgates, and, of course, the Lone One and his dealings with entropy.

The whole exchange had taken nearly two hours, and Audrey suddenly felt drained. She rolled over onto her stomach and quickly dropped off into a deep slumber.

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It was still dark when she woke up, and she moaned softly as she rolled over to look at her alarm clock, stretching laboriously as she did so.

"Ah, _crap_…"

The clock cheerfully blinked its bright red LCD digits at her: 4:40 AM.

Audrey, disgruntled at the amount of time remaining until her parents woke up, rolled back over and pulled the covers back up, trying to catch the last vestiges of sleep before they… slipped… away…

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Dang it.

She groaned again and reluctantly flung her legs out of the warmth of her bed, the rest of her following soon after, and after taking a look at what she was wearing, decided to change into something _not_ wrinkled and creased beyond belief.

Ten minutes later, she padded quietly downstairs, her stomach mumbling about its state of semi-emptiness as she entered the kitchen and flicked the lights on.

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Hmm… she thought as she opened the freezer and began to hunt for the waffles. _Did Rick eat the last waffle _again_?_

Coming up fruitless in her search, she resorted to pulling out the bread and tossing two slices into the toaster.

She sighed and checked the clock once more.

4:54 AM.

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Jeez, can time pass any slower…? _Just gotta make it to six AM… then, to the library!_

Easier said than done.

By the time five thirty rolled around, she had munched her way through two peanut-butter-coated pieces of toast and a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and the Friday comics had been discarded, having been reread for the eightieth time.

Audrey sighed and buried her head in her arms.

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Just thirty more minutes. That's… um… 1800 more seconds. Wait… that can't be right, can it? Maybe it is… start counting, Ree.

The next thing she knew, the sun was beginning to wink at her over the horizon, and she blearily lifted her head and checked the clock.

7:32 AM.

"Oh, no…"

Audrey hurriedly scribbled a note to her parents on the stack of Post-Its they kept on the kitchen counter, grabbed her helmet and bike, and within a minute and a half was pedaling steadily down her street.

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Brushing her auburn hair out of her eyes for the umpteenth time, Audrey ignored the admiring looks she was receiving from one of her former classmates and stalked down the nonfiction aisle, intent on finding something that dealt with the time-space continuum. Finding the subject in question, she ran her finger lightly over the top of the books, leaning the ones she wanted out at an angle.

What happened next was a sort of blur. She could have sworn the cursed book actually _jumped _up and slit her finger open with one of its pages, but she wasn't extremely sure. All she knew was one moment she was starting to tilt a book next to it backward, her fingers outstretched for balance, and the next, she was sucking at the nasty papercut she now had, and glaring at the book that had so foolishly injured her. But that annoyance quickly dissolved as she picked the book up.

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So You Want to be a Wizard, it read in faded gold script down its spine.

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The book tucked snugly under her arm, Audrey ruminated about what the librarian had told her. "Keep it," she had been told. "I have a feeling you'll be needing it more than others."

And Audrey knew exactly why.

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She stared at the Oath in front of her, and, hoping that this little speech worked, began to speak.

"In Life's name, and for Life's sake…"

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The Oath was finished, the spells were locked, and Audrey was very, very frustrated. She had peered into the bathroom mirror more than once, and what she saw majorly disappointed her. The exact same reflection as always blinked back at her; long auburn hair that reached halfway down her back, the dark brown eyes she had inherited from her father, and maybe one or two many freckles and a mole on the underside of her chin. Not particularly what she had been hoping for. Hey eyes could at least maybe brighter… but then her parents had never told her about the physical effects of the Oath. Maybe it wasn't _supposed_ to do anything…

Even more frustrated, Audrey gave a short, exasperated sigh, slammed the book shut, and retired to her bed, able to sink back into a deep slumber as seven AM rolled around.


	2. Bright Lights

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Chapter Two

Bright Lights

Audrey opened her eyes to a fierce ray of sunlight directly in her face. With a low groan, she rolled onto her stomach and jammed a pillow over her head, trying desperately to block out the strong light, and noticed a gentle hum from somewhere in her room. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she poked her head out and began searching for the source of the hum.

She traced it back to the book she'd brought home from the library, and gazed at it from her vantage point on the bed. It looked perfectly innocent, lying open on the floor where she'd left it last night.

Wait…

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Open?

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I could have sworn I closed it… she thought. Swinging herself out of bed for the second time that day, she glanced leisurely at the clock and discovered, to her shock, that it was nearly noon.

Oh, crud.

She was supposed to meet the rest of her school's Key Club at the local Chevron station for the car wash… in eight minutes.

Horrified, she glanced down at her clothes, and immediately decided to change. She had no desire to be caught in a white t-shirt at a car wash.

Three minutes later, she was out of her room and down the stairs without even a backward glance at the manual.

Unfortunately for her, it just might have been better if she had taken a moment to look at the page it was currently on.

Under RODRIGUEZ, ABEL, an entry in the manual shimmered and winked out at the empty room.

RODRIGUEZ, Audrey M. Novice rating

1185 Myra Avenue. (RL 8.9/ - 0.3)

Cypress, CA 90630 On Ordeal: no calls

(714) 555-8406

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She made it to the Chevron station in the nick of time. The first in a small line of cars, mostly parents and friends of those in Key Club, was just pulling in. Audrey flashed a grin at a tall, dark-haired girl who was currently wielding a hose and nozzle like her life depended on it. The girl grinned back at her and flicked a meaningful glance over her shoulder. "Ryan's over there…"

Audrey struggled to hide a blush and sauntered over to where Ryan Travers was scrubbing at a stubborn spot on the Suburban's hood. He glanced up at her and gave her a smile that left her heart pounding in her chest.

"Hey, Audrey. What's up?"

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Um…

"Nothing much… you?"

"Well, now, what does it look like…?"

He grinned at her, though not in a spiteful way, and she felt herself blushing.

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Oh no, not now…

She grabbed a sponge to hide her embarrassment and started furiously on a mud splash on the right front fender, inches away from the spot Ryan was currently scrubbing. The splash cleaned off easily, and Audrey reluctantly moved on.

The tall Asian girl knelt beside her on the pretext of scrubbing at the SUV's wheels and muttered, "You really _are_ focused on him, huh?"

Audrey rolled her eyes and flicked her hair over one shoulder in airy annoyance. "I dunno what you mean, Mindy…"

Mindy grinned evilly at her. "Your face is, like, pretty much a nice shade of red right now. What'd he do, like, look at you?" She grinned and ducked the wet rag Audrey hurled at her, coming up chuckling. "What? It's not, like, he's your secret crush or anything…"

Audrey sneaked a glance over her shoulder to see if Ryan had heard any of this, noticed with some relief that he was still working on the stubborn spot, and turned back to Mindy, who was turning red, but with suppressed laughter.

"You are dead, you know that?"

Mindy shrugged and resumed her enthusiastic hosing down of the behemoth SUV.

Ryan noticed with some satisfaction that the spot was definitely coming off, and glanced over at Audrey and… her friend… what was her name? Mandy or something like that. They were chatting animatedly, and as Ryan scrubbed, he casually eavesdropped on their conversation.

He heard the other girl say in a rather loud voice, "It's not, like, he's your secret crush or anything…"

Still scrubbing away at the spot, which by now was nearly gone, he heard Audrey mutter something that sounded dangerously like a threat, and their conversation halted.

The driver of the Suburban returned, and Ryan and the others backed away as the SUV pulled out, and was immediately replaced by a Chevy Cavalier.

He sighed and got to work.

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As six PM rolled around, the line of cars abruptly halted, rush hour being over, and everyone at home for the day.

Ryan collapsed into a lawn chair and heaved a sigh, sipping a Coke he'd bought from the convenience store.

He couldn't help but notice the small circle of girls giggling and talking to Audrey about something. The fact that they kept throwing glances over their shoulders at him, then grinning and ducking back down into the circle was a bit disconcerting. The dark-haired boy by his shoulder watched his friend with a bit of sympathy.

"It's okay, Ryan. They're not exactly sane…"

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Easy for you to say, Raghav. You're not the one being talked about in that little circle over there."

Raghav grinned. "Yeah… you're right." He clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Good luck, man. You're gonna need it."

Ryan didn't reply, just settled for glaring at his friend and burying his head in his hands.

A bluish-green Accord rolled into the station, and Raghav sighed. "That's my mom… gotta go. See ya… don't let 'em get to you, okay?"

Ryan waved, then returned his face to his hands as another bout of giggling from the assembled circle of girls reached his ears.

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Oh, Lord, shut them up, shut them up, shut them up…

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Wonder if he likes me back.

Ryan blinked. That certainly wasn't his thought… was it? Oh, God, he was turning delusional… the noxious gas fumes were getting to him.

But the thought… it had been in a strangely familiar voice.

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Female, definitely female.

Audrey…?

Yup.

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Wait a minute… she's a wizard? When did she_ take the Oath?_

He made a mental note to ask her when she left, and resigned himself to trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.

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It was nearly five o'clock when the last of Audrey's friends left, and she sighed, stretched, and started toward the corner.

"Hey… hey! Audrey! Wait up…"

She froze, and, to her horror, a hot blush began to creep up her cheeks.

Ryan caught up to her, and he flashed her a smile. "Some day, huh?"

Audrey nodded mutely and, stumbling slightly, resumed walking.

Ryan's smile faded. "Listen, Audrey… I need to ask you something."

She froze again, and, of course, blushed furiously. "Go ahead," she said, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"You're a wizard, right?"

Audrey stared dumbly at him. How did he know? "Yeah… yeah, I am."

He stared at her, then sighed. "Do you have any idea what the status thing means when it says 'On Ordeal'?"

She nodded. "Yeah… I guess it's, like, a kind of test… it's to prove you know how to handle your power or something like that."

Ryan sighed. "Oh. Shouldn't be too bad, then… mind if I walk you home?"

Audrey blushed furiously. She was about to say yes, she minded, but a small voice in the back of her head stopped her.

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You're not in elementary school any more. Cooties are a thing of the past… I hope. You're in junior high… it's about time. Why not?

So she shook her head mutely and blushed even further.

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The walk home was completed in relative silence, and they were so lost in their own thoughts that neither of them noticed the very expensive-looking black Mercedes-Benz purring along behind them, following their every step.

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Audrey sighed and flopped facefirst onto her bed, letting the sounds of a summer afternoon wash over her. One of her neighbors was mowing the lawn, and the distinct odor of cut grass drifted through her open window. Her calico cat, Pacifica, leapt lightly onto the bed, slipped, and, clawing desperately at the covers, fell ungracefully off the bed.

With an indignant mew, Pacifica jumped back up, this time gaining enough footage to curl up beside Audrey and fall asleep in a matter of seconds.

Stroking the cat's silky head, Audrey reached up beside her pillow, her eyes still closed, and fumbled for the book she had been reading. Something by Agatha Christie. _And Then There Were None_?

She grabbed it and brought it up to her face. Yup.

Heaving another sigh, she flipped the book open to where her bookmark was wedged solidly between the pages and began to read.

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Audrey groaned as she clambered back into bed in her favorite pajamas, picking up the novel where she'd left off.

She got so into the novel that she lost all track of time, and the next thing she knew, it was nearly 2 AM, and she was dead tired.

Rubbing her eyes, she glanced blearily at the clock.

"Uhhhhnnnn… crap… two AM…?"

Yawning widely, she flicked the light switch off and fell back onto her pillow, where dreams quickly enveloped her.

She was standing in the middle of a two-lane blacktop, facing the setting sun. She closed her eyes as a gentle breeze caressed her face, feeling the sun beat down on her face. It was a pleasant situation, and she couldn't think of anywhere else she'd rather be.

Audrey was just thinking _Hey, I might wanna move here…_ when the black Mercedes roared over the hill and toward her.

There was no time to react, and Audrey merely watched in horror as the Mercedes barreled toward her.

Her last thought before the Mercedes slammed into her was _I wonder if Ryan knows where this is_…

She woke in a cold sweat, winded and wide-eyed. Her heart racing wildly, she rolled laboriously onto her stomach and checked her alarm clock.

4:25 AM.

Her heart still pounding, she heaved herself out of bed and stumbled downstairs. Grabbing a cup from the cabinet where her mom kept them, she poured herself a glass of water and downed it in a few gulps. As she put the cup down, four headlights swept slowly past the window, and she froze as a black Mercedes-Benz coupe rolled ominously past her house, its engine purring sinisterly. Audrey's heart rate tripled as the Mercedes slowed to a stop at the end of her block, then turned left and disappeared, the taillights leaving a faint reddish glow as they disappeared into the early-morning fog.

Audrey refused to believe this was coincidence.

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The sun beat down harshly on the tarmac as Audrey made her way toward Ryan's house, jumping every time a car came up behind her. After looking wildly around as a dark green Tercel passed by, she resigned to the decision that she was _not_ going to be mowed down by a lunatic in a Mercedes, and merely sprinted the last few yards up to the front door, reluctantly glancing about all the while.

She pushed the doorbell, and glanced over her shoulder at the street as an Aerostar rattled by. The door creaked open, and her head swiveled around to look at the middle-aged woman standing in the doorway. The woman smiled tiredly at her.

"Hi…"

Audrey did her best to smile politely. "Hi, I'm here to see Ryan."

The woman stared pointedly at her. "Your name…?"

"I'm Audrey. Rodriguez."

"Oh, yeah, Ryan was talking about you… come on inside. He' s upstairs… go on up, second door to your left."

Audrey slipped out of her sandals and padded upstairs.

She found Ryan, as promised, at his computer in his room. He swiveled around at her knock and smiled at her. Fighting a blush, she dropped onto his bed, and he leaned back in the desk chair he was sitting in.

"So…" Audrey began, a little uncertainly. "You wanted to talk to me?"

He nodded. "Yeah. When, exactly, did you take the Oath?"

"Umm… two days ago… why?"

Ryan pulled the manual out of a desk drawer and opened it to the wizard listings.

TRAVERS, Ryan A. Novice rating

8366 Hanover Street. (RL 8.6/ - 0.3)

Cypress, CA 90630 On Ordeal: no calls

(714) 555-8519 Partnership: pending; see RODRIGUEZ, Audrey M.

He looked up at her. "That's why."

Slamming the manual shut in frustration, he put his chin in his hand and sighed angrily. "I don't _get_ it. We're not supposed to be partnered unless it's for something really important… and I don't see anything important as of right now."

Audrey bristled. "Are you saying that you don't want me as a partner? Or are you saying you think I'm an unimportant jerk who can't even walk straight?"

Ryan reddened and shook his head. "Sorry…" he mumbled, going even redder. "I didn't… didn't mean that…"

Audrey glared at him, her anger subsiding a bit. "Damn well shouldn't have…" she muttered.

Despite her anger, she couldn't help but notice how good he looked.

Fighting a blush back again, she turned her gaze to his room. It was much cleaner than hers, but still not spic-and-span. She was impressed, though she would never let him know that. With a sigh, she took in what hung on his walls: above his computer to the right, a large poster of a black number 3 Goodwrench Monte Carlo hung under a NASCAR banner.

To the upper left, two small marine life paintings hung above a Harry Potter calendar, and a fan perched on a shelf to the direct left of the monitor was blowing cool air into the room.

She liked it, and she was in the process of mentally rearranging her stuff in her room to match it when he jerked her out of her trance.

"Listen, Audrey… did you have a dream last night?"

Audrey stared at him. "Yeah… I did. What's it to you?"

He gazed back at her, then murmured, "If you put it like that, nothing."

Something about him made Audrey immediately feel guilty, and she muttered, "Sorry… why d'you ask?"

"Because I had one. And you were in it."

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I was in one of his dreams? Is that good or bad…? Audrey wondered.

"Listen, did it involve a Mercedes?"

She nodded. "Yeah… it hit me… and then I woke up…"

"I was driving it."

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What the heck? What, does he want to kill me or something?

"No, I don't."

"Huh?" she asked, bemused.

"I don't want to kill you at all. In fact, I felt like I had to puke after that dream… god, the look on your face was horrible."

Audrey stared at him, slightly intimidated by this.

"So… what does that mean?"

He shrugged. "Audrey, for all I know, it could mean the sky's gonna fall down on us."

She grinned. "You can call me Ree if you want," she said, feeling a little shy all of a sudden.

A smile spread across Ryan's freckled features. "Ree. Sure."

Audrey's stomach did a backflip, and, doing an excellent job of hiding her feeling, she sighed and inquired, "So what do we do… about this?"

A shrug. "I dunno… wait it out and see."

She nodded, and, getting to her feet, stretched.

"Okay… well, if you need me, come on over to my place… you know where it's at… and I guess I'll see you later…"

She was sorely tempted to say "Call me," but decided against it. Too much of a cliché.

As Ryan waved and turned back to his computer, Audrey vanished downstairs.

The door opened and shut, and silence descended over the Travers household once more.


	3. Tropical Dread

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A/N: No, I really didn't want to write this chapter in this way… but, hey, it's a stepping stone for the next chapter. Sorry it's so short… more to come later.

Chapter Three

Tropical Dread

The ice cream truck rattled its way past Audrey, the ancient speakers on its roof blaring out a horribly monophonic rendition of _Turkey in the Straw_, drawing kids from their houses like ants to feast on its cargo of Popsicles and ice cream sandwiches.

Ah, summer.

Unfortunately, Audrey's mind was on another subject completely, as demonstrated by the fact that she had to hastily sidestep to avoid two trees, an ancient Pinto, and the neighbor's cat.

She had spent the better part of a whole month contemplating the fact that a partnership was pending between her longtime crush and herself, and was working on deciding whether this was a good thing or not. For one thing, she lost track of whatever she was doing when he looked at her, and, judging by what her parents had told her about the art of wizardry, this was not a good thing when one was working on a matrix.

The results tended to be fatal.

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But on the other hand, she thought cheerfully, _I get to spend time with him…_

Somehow, that didn't make her feel much better. Perhaps it was the fact that she preferred life to spending a few hours with her crush.

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Is there really anything I can do about it, though? _If we're partnered, it's all for the best._

At least, I hope it is. I mean, Mom found her soul mate… maybe I'll be as lucky as her.

She sighed, then jammed her hands into her jean pockets and trudged down Myra Avenue, nervously glancing up as each car passed, looking for a certain Mercedes.

The dreams, instead of going away, had gotten worse and more recurring until it was nearly every night that she woke up in a cold sweat, wondering if she was going insane. She was beginning to dread going to sleep now, knowing that, just beyond the borders of consciousness, a black Mercedes and a two-lane highway lay in wait for her.

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What the heck is going on.…? she wondered. _Am I just suffering from something I ate…? Hallucinations. That's what it is. Gotta cut back on what I eat…_

Fed up with walking the mile and a half between her house and Ryan's, she hauled up her transport spell matrix for home and laid it down on the concrete before her.

She barked a syllable in the Speech as she stepped forward onto it, and vanished with a _bang_.

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This was _so_ definitely not home.

And since when was there a two-lane blacktop dead-ending onto a hill overlooking Seal Beach?

This was not good.

Audrey jumped violently as a loud _bang_ echoed across the road, and a very confused looking Ryan stood next to her, blinking in the light of the scenic Pacific sunset.

He turned to Audrey. "Where the hell am I?" he demanded.

Audrey suddenly felt a gnawing ball of terror suddenly begin to grow in her stomach as she realized just where they were.

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No… it's all a hallucination. I just have to wait for it to come… just wait… just…

"Get off the road."

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Ryan…

"_Get off the road!_"

He grabbed her arm and tried pulling her off the highway, but she smacked him across the face and dashed back to where she originally stood.

Headlights appeared at the base of the hill.

"Oh, _hell _no…" Ryan moaned disbelievingly.

He sprinted out onto the highway and tried desperately to pull Audrey off the road. She refused to budge.

Ryan heard the roar of the engine too late.

Its motor snarling with triumph, the black Mercedes breasted the top of the hill.

Audrey's eyes suddenly widened, and she began to back up.

It was too late.

She was just turning to run when the Mercedes slammed into her hip. Audrey felt a few things snap as she sailed backwards through the air, landing on her back and breaking something else.

Pain.

Excruciating pain swept through her body, and she moaned as she heard another sickening crunch next to her. Probably Ryan.

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Oh… sh, I hope he's alive…

Unconsciousness was quick to grab her and haul her down into its merciful depths.

She blacked out.


	4. Lights in the Abyss

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Chapter Four

Lights in the Abyss

Pain.

Mind-blowing pain.

His whole body was on fire.

"Uuuunnnnhhh…"

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Okay, Ryan. All you gotta do is roll your body to the left a bit…

Ryan dimly realized that there was another body sprawled at a very grotesque angle across his back. Breathing? Yes. Conscious? Doubtful. Male? Umm… not likely.

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Why the hell don't I just open my eyes?

He did.

And, after a few moments of thinking, squeezed them shut again.

Blackness.

Absolute darkness stared him bleakly in the face, no matter which way he craned his neck. It enveloped him and the form across his back tightly, as if an opaque blanket determined to throttle them.

The form slumped over his back moaned gently and stirred.

"Unnnnhhhh… wha…?"

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Oh, god…

"Audrey? Is that you?"

"Yeah… Ryan?"

She sounded absolutely terrified.

"I'm here…"

"Unnhh… it hurts to freaking move…" Audrey groaned, shifting positions awkwardly.

There was a long silence, then Audrey murmured, "Where the hell _are_ we?"

Ryan shrugged, then, realizing he couldn't be seen in the pressing dark, sighed. "I dunno."

Silence.

"_Dang_ it, Audrey, what the heck were you _thinking_?"

An embarrassed silence fell.

"I… crap… I dunno, Ryan… sorry."

"_Sorry_ doesn't begin to cover it," Ryan seethed. "You almost got both of us killed."

"_Almost?_ How d'you know we're not dead right now?"

"Because, if we were, this is Hell. And even more reason to be ticked off at you."

Another embarrassed silence.

When Audrey spoke again, she was clearly tearing up.

"Look, I-I-I'm s-s-_sorry_," she stuttered thickly, "I d-d-dunno what g-g-got into m-m-me…"

Fervently wishing he was anywhere but stranded in the dark with a crying Audrey, Ryan resigned himself to his role of Human Tissue and let Audrey bury her face in his shoulder.

"Look… I… I'm sorry, Audrey…" Ryan muttered sheepishly as she nestled her face into the corner where his neck met his shoulder.

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Warm… mmmm…

Suddenly realizing just _who_ she was snuggling up to, Audrey pulled away quickly, quietly thanking the fates that the darkness hid her furious blush.

Ryan seemed a little uncomfortable as well.

"Mmmlllp…"

He sat up and gasped as first excruciating pain, then nausea rushed to his head. He lay back down with a hurried _thump_.

Audrey, on the other hand, seemed to be sitting up, as was deemed when she spoke again.

"You okay?"

"Fine… but what're we going to do now?"

He caught the faint mental imprint of a frown from Audrey, and felt her fingertips on his forehead. He inexplicably experienced a sudden shortness of breath as she laid a soft hand on his forehead and spoke a few syllables.

Instantly, the pain and nausea receded, and Ryan sat up, woozy and tired, but alive.

"Okay… much better, thanks a heck of a lot. You didn't answer my question, though: Now what?"

A faint glow penetrated the darkness, and it shrank back from them as Audrey's manual fell open, emitting a soft golden light as the auburn-haired girl placed it on her knee and flipped through a few pages.

"Okay… here."

She removed a basic spell matrix from inside the rear cover of the manual, then began adding syllables and alternating others, occasionally glancing at the manual for confirmation. The spell quickly took shape, sparking green in the pale light of the manual. Audrey spoke a sharp syllable, and a dazzling light suddenly bulleted out of the matrix.

Audrey picked up the matrix, played with it, then widened the beam sufficiently enough for her to point the light at Ryan and not fry him.

"Well, then… let's start walking."

Blinking in the unfamiliar light, Ryan sighed and followed Audrey out onto the vast, shadow-covered wasteland.


	5. Shadows in the Abyss

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Chapter Five

Shadows of the Abyss

Shadows flickered around them, just out of the light's reach. Large, hulking shapes that noiselessly glided along the ground, watching them amidst other motionless chunks of rubble. The occasional _plink_ of something was audible from either side of them, but besides that, all was silent.

But the shapes still moved.

The matrix's light flickered over a disturbing sight: a horribly mangled wreck of a once-proud skyscraper; now reduced to a mound of twisted and charred steel, glass, and ashes. This was the first in a series of hundreds of these mounds of ashen rubble and metal. The rows of the piles of junk extended far into the mists of darkness, well beyond the comparatively weak beam from the matrix.

There was a horrid-sounding _crunch_ from underfoot, and Audrey whipped the light downwards to see what, exactly, they had just stepped on.

The crushed, mangled aluminum and fiberglass carcass of an older-model Lotus Esprit seemed to have been hit by a relatively large, mobile meteor. The car had been crushed perfectly flat with the charred, melted asphalt underneath.

"Ow," Audrey murmured, then proceeded forward. Ryan stared in horror at the annihilated sports car for just a moment longer, then hurried to catch up.

Behind them, dim silhouettes moved ominously in the darkness.

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Three hours of walking proved fruitless. Audrey flicked the light around, playing it over the demolished buildings, looking generally apprehensive of what lurked in the shadows.

The hulking silhouettes had generally receded into the distance, and the darkness seemed to press in around them even more eagerly than before, as if determined to crush them in its icy claws.

Despite himself, Ryan jumped as the light swept across his back, giving him the impression that someone was standing in very, very close proximity behind him.

This whole Ordeal thing was extremely disconcerting, as both of them were positive someone… _something_… lurked in the heart of this ruined metropolis.

What they didn't know: They were right.

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The first clue that they were being followed was an extremely quiet, nearly inaudible purr from somewhere in the looming blackness behind them.

Audrey glanced over her shoulder at Ryan, who was plodding along behind her, his head down, kicking at various pieces of rubble as he dutifully followed his wizardry partner down the tattered street.

"Hungry?" she inquired.

He jumped, looked at her, then shook his head.

Audrey frowned. "Then what was that?"

"What was what?"

"That… there was a hum behind us."

"Huh?"

"_That_. Listen…"

The noise was louder now, and rapidly growing in intensity. In fact, it now resembled an extremely lous roar of machinery, come to think of it…

Crap.

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Damn… I could have sworn we just went through this…

"Audrey, _get off the road!_"

She obeyed this time, landing on top of the matrix, effectively smothering its light. The approaching headlights were now plainly visible, and growing brighter by the second as the roar became nearly unbearable in intensity.

Ryan stood for a moment, outlined in the glare of the headlights, then took a flying leap off the road in the nick of time.

The boxy form of an older muscle car, possibly a GTO, whipped by and fishtailed into a 180 degree turn, sweeping its headlights slowly across the demolished building.

Ryan and Audrey, crouching beneath the jagged edge of the asphalt three feet above their heads, remained perfectly motionless as the lights traveled above their heads, then flickered back to the road.

The car burned rubber and roared off into the darkness, its taillights quickly swallowed by the enveloping gloom, leaving behind two very stunned teens and a faintly glowing matrix.

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"Okay," Audrey groaned, rubbing her eyes as she struggled to process the information she'd just been given. "So…we're being pursed by these psychotic cars that are something out of a Stephen King book, are probably gonna get killed during the progress of this Ordeal thing, and I'm supposed to be _optimistic_?"

Ryan, a wholly fake smile plastered onto his face, nodded. "Yeah… that would be the main part of it…"

"You're delirious."

"I know. Thank you."

With a low moan of disbelief, Audrey buried her face in her hands. "You are gonna get us both killed."

"…If we're not already dead," Ryan cheerfully reminded her.

Another groan.

"Ryan, shut up. You're making me nauseous."

"Is that a good thing?"

"_No._ Shut up."

Ryan obliged, settling for starting work on a shield matrix, copying the diagrams from his manual, occasionally poking it and muttering, "Clarify."

Audrey, on the other hand, curled up and did her best to fall asleep in a very uncomfortable pair of jeans.

Failing miserably, she sprawled out, cupped her chin in one hand, and watched Ryan work.

He glanced over at her, and smiled kindly, making her stomach do a few weird flips. "Nauseous?" he needled.

Audrey rolled her eyes. "Nah. What're you making?"

"Advanced shield matrix. It'll block everything from a pebble chucked at you to an atom bomb explosion."

"Ah. That explains a lot…"

He shrugged and went back to his work.

Audrey watched him for a while, then rolled onto her back and shut her eyes.

She was asleep in a matter of minutes.

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A/N: Yeah, it was short… but, unfortunately, I've run out of ideas on this story. It might be a bit of a while before I update again…

Teky1389- JD and Rae rebelled. They, unfortunately for me, insisted that I change their names to Chris and Audrey. Yeah… but they say aloha auina la, and hope that The Almighty Author will update the website soon.

Venus Goddess Sailor Magna U- Thanks. And there WILL be more… soon.

Fireblade K'Chona- Thanks for being a constant reviewer… noooooo, not the Puppy Eyes of DOOM™ !

Reading Redhead- Thanks for the feedback… hope you enjoyed this so far.

Mornstar- Thanks!

Yayalulu- Thanks… though you probably won't see this until September…


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